Re: Debatch stalled

Richard Porter  wrote on 1 Feb:
> ... got around the impasse by moving the backup directory to a safe
> place and creating a new one. After that the debatch completed and I
> was able to read the messages. One message had parttial headers
> followed by garbage and no body.

> So the question is why the debatch stalled because of something in the
> backup directory, the size of which was 225MB (going back to August
> 2015 which was the point up to which I last cleared stuff out).

Could be the plague that I had for months back in 2013. (See thread 
"debatch freezes" in this ng, 2013-15.)

I take it you mean the folder !Newsdir.Msgserve.Backup
   What subdirectories do you find in that folder?  Here, I have one 
subdir for each of the four fetches I do (self, wife and lists from 
one ISP, Archive mailbox from a different ISP).
   Do a Count on each of these subdirs.  Each should (as I understand 
it) contain a max of 72 files.

I finally cured my plague in 2013 when I twigged this and deleted the 
oldest backups to bring it back to 72.

My theory is that a bug in the Newsdir code tests for =72 but not for 
>72, with result that if some fluke allows files to escape deletion, 
the subdir just goes on getting fatter and fatter.

AIUI (somebody correct me if I'm wrong), these "backup" files never 
actually get used: they are copies of what was in 
!Netfetch.Apps.!Hermes.Maildir.mailin before Hermes debatched and 
immediately deleted its own copy.

-- 
Jim Nagel                        www.archivemag.co.uk

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